POLLING BOOTHS.

Akaroa Mail and Banks Peninsula Advertiser, Volume VI, Issue 572, 6 January 1882, Page 2

POLLING BOOTHS.

To the Editor.

Sir,—l am rather astonished to read in your issue of tbe 27th inst a paragraph in which much disappointment is expressed at there being only one polling booth for the riding of Okain's, at the forthcoming election for a member of the County Council. That paragraph would lead outsiders to perhaps reflect on the Returning Officer, and in justice to all concerned in the present election, I will endeavour to give you my opinion. lam an elector and a President of 24 years' standing in the Okain's district. There are 11 electors in Okain'a Bay, there are 4 midway between the two bays, there are 53 in Little Akaloa.

Now, sir, would the Returning Officer be justified in putting the county to the expense of an extra polling booth for these 11 electors? Or, again, would he have been justified in haying the polling booth in Okain's Bay, and thus making 53 electors meet the convenience of 11 electors? I think this quite sufficient to justify the Returning Officer in the matter.

The Little Akaloa and Le Bon's electors have had to travel to all elections to Okain's Eay for about 14 years, until the '• Local Elections Acti" was adopted. The Okain's electors did not then think that any hardship on poc'r Akaloa and Le BonV. No; it rather suited their purposes. But now they are asked to do the same thing for the first time, having always had the two former bays as their tools, the shoe seems to pinch. In conclusion, sir, Akaloa is nearer the centre of the riding, than Okain's Bay.—Yours, etc., AN ELECTOR